


Mafia! Mafia!

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Murder Mystery, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Established Relationship, F/F, Happy Ending, M/M, Married Couple, Multi, Murder Mystery, Nonbinary My Unit | Kamui | Corrin, Plot Twists, Temporary Character Death, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: To Corrin, he said, “I’m afraid that Effie has been… murdered.”“Murdered?”Corrin said, voice strangled. “How—Who could ever—”“We don’t know yet,” Severa said, butting in. She ignored Jakob’s glare. “We shouldn’t speculate either. Jakob only found her body an hour ago.”Corrin stared at him. “You found her?”
Relationships: Camilla/Luna | Selena, Joker | Jakob & My Unit | Kamui | Corrin, Lazward | Laslow/Marx | Xander, Leon | Leo/Odin/Zero | Niles (Hinted), Leon | Leo/Zero | Niles
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	Mafia! Mafia!

**Author's Note:**

> 🎵 ~ It's the most 🎃 wonderful time 🎃 of the year ~🎵 
> 
> My favorite time of year is here!!! October!! Whoop!!
> 
> And to celebrate, here is another Halloween fic! I'm mixing it up this year by making it a Murder Mystery instead of a The Gang Gets Chased By Scary Monsters fic. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Beware the tags for both warnings and spoilers!

**The First Night**

Effie peered through her apartment doorway into the dark. Right. Left. Nothing.

Shrugging, she figured it must have been the wind that blew the door open. She had to get that faulty lock fixed sometime.

Not that it was very urgent. Their little town practically didn’t have any crime, and there was little doubt in her mind that she couldn’t toss any would-be robbers out on their ass if they so much as made the attempt.

She shut her apartment door and turned around.

The knife slid between her ribs smoothly.

Effie choked. A wet gurgle welled up in her throat.

Ah, she thought. A collapsed lung.

She stared, incredulous, at the shadowed figure standing before her. How—

A second knife slammed into her side with much more force, jolting her out of her shock. She cried out and stumbled back, bumping against her now closed front door. She reached for her side and felt only wetness and pain.

Coughing, the taste of copper filled her mouth.

It was already too late.

Effie fell to her knees, vision dimming, the pain in her chest and side growing distant and numb.

By the time she was found the next morning, she had already been dead for hours.

**The First Day**

“What?” Corrin said with wide eyes. “Effie’s _dead_?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jakob said. He hadn’t cared much for Effie, in truth. She was a messy woman who had eaten the snacks he had made specifically for Corrin on more than one occasion. But she had been close to Elise, who was close to Corrin, and so Jakob tried to keep his voice gentle when he spoke about her passing.

“And that’s not all. I don’t want to alarm you, but… I’m afraid it wasn’t an accident.”

Corrin’s face had, somehow, gone even paler. “What? What does that mean?”

Jakob squeezed their forearm reassuringly. His chest ached to see Corrin like this, but it was better that it come from him.

He shot Severa, who was standing in the corner of the room, a warning glance not to speak. She sent him an inscrutable look right back.

To Corrin, he said, “I’m afraid that Effie has been… murdered.”

 _“Murdered?”_ Corrin said, voice strangled. “How—Who could ever—”

“We don’t know yet,” Severa said, butting in. She ignored Jakob’s glare. “We shouldn’t speculate either. Jakob only found her body an hour ago.”

Corrin stared at him. “You found her?”

“Yes,” he admitted, glaring at Severa. “Her door was wide open as I happened to be passing by this morning.”

“I closed the scene off already,” Severa added. “So don’t even think about going there.”

Jakob could have rolled his eyes. As though visiting the scene of a murder was on the top of _anyone’s_ to-do list.

Then he remembered there were nutcases like Owain walking around and revised that opinion.

“How…” Corrin swallowed. “How did it happen?”

Severa and Jakob exchanged a look. She tipped her head in his direction.

“Corrin,” Jakob said gently. “I don’t think that’s…”

“Please. I want to know.”

He paused. He couldn’t deny a direct request.

“She was stabbed to death,” Jakob admitted. “At least twice. Maybe more. We don’t have a coroner, you know, so we can’t be sure on some of the details until one arrives next week. But…”

Corrin closed their eyes, looking pained. “It must have been so awful. She must have felt so alone.”

There was nothing he could say to that. He squeezed their arm again.

A lot moment of silence passed between the three of them.

Eventually, Corrin blinked their watery eyes back open “Could you excuse me for a minute, Jakob? I’m sorry. I—I need to make a phone call.”

To call Elise, no doubt. Or one of their other siblings, to figure out how to break the news gently to her. Jakob understood; that same need was the reason he’d forced Severa into letting him be the one to tell Corrin first.

“Of course,” Jakob said. “I’ll leave you alone for now. How about I pick your favorite scones up from the store, hm?”

Corrin shot him a weak smile. “Thanks. That… that would be nice.”

He nodded and gestured for Severa to follow him outside. Thankfully, she did.

“Now, I have several matters to attend to,” Jakob said the moment the door shut behind them, without leaving Severa a moment to speak. “While I appreciate you allowing me to be the one to break the news to Corrin—”

After he’d all but twisted her arm about it, she thought sourly.

“—I must absolutely forbid you from speaking any further with them. They’re going to want to be alone or with their family today, and there’s absolutely no possibility of them having anything to do with Effie’s death anyway—"

“Hey, hey, hey!” Severa crossed her arms. “What’s with the orders? Don’t act like you’re in charge here! I’m the closest thing this crummy town has to law enforcement, you know.”

“And I see how well that turned out with Effie,” Jakob sniffed.

She wrinkled her nose. That one stung. “Well, how was I supposed to know—”

“If you’re that concerned about it, then make sure you catch whoever did this before someone else Corrin cares about ends up hurt. Or, better yet, before they hurt _Corrin_.” He eyed her critically. “You should know that if it comes to that, I will be forced to take your failures into my own hands.”

Severa scoffed. Jakob, so much as get his nice, butler-y clothes dirty? Yeah, right.

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise,” Jakob said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some errands to attend to. I must make sure Corrin has everything they need to comfort themselves for the next few days. _Don’t_ cause any undue distress with your investigation.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved him off. “Go scuttle back to whatever hole you crawled from, you snake.”

As Jakob left, Severa slyly looked through the front window to Corrin’s home. Though she was standing far enough away that she couldn’t hear anything, Corrin was still pacing and talking into their phone, looking anxious and grim.

Not a great time for an interview then. She sighed. Not that she wanted to listen to _Jakob_ of all people, but she wasn’t going to be a jerk about it. Corrin probably didn’t have anything to do with Effie’s death anyway. There were other people she could interview first.

For some reason, she had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.

Between Elise’s sobs and how snugly her face was pressed against Camilla’s shoulder, it was impossible to understand a word she was saying. Camilla could only pet Elise’s curls and whisper comforting words that likely did nothing to soothe the ache in her sister’s heart.

“I know,” Camilla said quietly, feeling the cloth on her shoulder grow wet with tears. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

Elise simply cried. In the corner, Corrin looked sullen in a way Camilla hadn’t seen them since they were children.

Oh, her chest ached.

Xander silently appeared in the doorway. He sent Camilla a questioning look.

Camilla shook her head. They were going to be here for a long while.

Xander inclined his head understandingly. He vanished back into the living room, where he and Leo continued to speak in quiet tones.

Several minutes passed as Camilla continued to hold Elise. Occasionally, Corrin wiped their eyes with a tissue or made a sound of acknowledgement at Camilla but otherwise kept quiet. It was so opposite Corrin’s usual cheerful behavior that Camilla was beginning to grow concerned.

Then, after the better part of an hour had passed, she heard a knock at the front door. Through the crack in the door to Elise’s bedroom, she saw a flash of Xander’s broad back as he answered the door.

“Xander.” That was Severa’s voice. Camilla blinked. “Good morning.”

“Severa?” Xander said. “Why didn’t you just use your key?”

Camilla had wondered the same thing. She’d been wondering where her wife had been all morning.

“I’m here on official business, and I know Elise is home,” Severa said. “It… felt more respectful, I guess.”

She didn’t hear Xander answer immediately, so Camilla assumed he’d nodded.

“I understand. Camilla and Elise are both home. Corrin came over a short while ago. I assume you knew that, however.”

“…Yeah.”

Another pause. “Leo and I will be in the living room, if you need us. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Thank you.”

She heard Xander walk away from the door and back towards the living room but didn’t hear the front door shut. She imagined Severa standing there, hesitating in the entrance of her own home.

Camilla frowned. How strange and inverted the world had become overnight.

Before she could debate the merits of staying where she was versus intercepting Severa, she heard another set of heavy, thumping footsteps jogging their way up to the front door.

“Elise!” Arthur called out. “Are you home? I heard the news! I—Oh, Severa!”

Oh, dear. Apprehension filled her.

Although certainly well-intentioned, Arthur’s inability to read a room and his typically clumsy attempts to help seemed more likely to bungle the situation than to make Elise feel better. But given how Elise’s cries began to slow at the sound of Arthur’s voice, Camilla also hesitated to turn him away.

In any case, she wasn’t the one Arthur saw first.

“Severa,” Arthur said loudly, “I have been meaning to speak with you!”

Severa sounded brisk as she responded. “Sorry, Arthur, but now isn’t really a good time.”

“I know. Which is why I want to offer myself up in any way I can!”

“…Excuse me?”

Camilla took a moment to process that along with Severa and realized Arthur must not have realized his own innuendo. Severa must have realized the same thing, because after a moment she continued:

“No offense,” Severa said, “but there’s no way I could ever accept your help.”

Arthur sounded stricken. “But why? You know I fight for justice! Particularly for justice of my dear friend!” The smile in his voice began to falter. Word traveled fast in a small town. “Effie… If I had known she was in trouble…”

“I know,” Severa said, not unkindly. “We all would have.”

Arthur shook his head and straightened his shoulders. “Which is why you must let me assist you! Please! I can carry out interrogations or investigate clues—”

Camilla could perfectly picture Severa’s signature wince. “Sorry, but no way.”

“But why?” Arthur asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Number one, you’re not qualified for this job at all,” Severa said, probably ticking the list off her fingers. “Number two, you have terrible luck. You’d probably find a way to fall off the roof or something before you found any real clues. And number three, you’re extremely close to the victim! You’re biased. No way.”

“But it’s _because_ I know Effie so well that I can give you more insight on any information you might come across! There’s simply no way I can sit on the sidelines when I know there’s something more I could be doing to avenge her!”

“You’ll _absolutely_ be sitting on the sidelines unless you want to be sitting in a jail cell for obstruction of justice.”

Their voices were beginning to carry as their argument grew. Camilla heard more than saw their shuffled footsteps as Severa tried to duck around Arthur, who was simply too large to let her pass.

“Severa, please reconsider—”

“Can you let me through now? No offense, I have real work to do.”

A thump. Their voices overlapped and grew louder.

“Not until you listen to—”

“Move out of the—"

“Severa, Arthur, is now _really_ the time?” Camilla called out. She didn’t raise her voice—how could she, when the last thing Elise and Corrin needed was any more stress? —but she saw out of the corner of her eye how Arthur and Severa both flinched with shame.

They exchanged a few words thankfully too quiet for Camilla to hear as she gently played with Elise’s hair. Finally, they came to Elise’s bedroom door and gently knocked.

Elise scrubbed a knuckle against her red eyes. “A-Arthur?”

“Elise!” Then he caught Severa and Camilla’s twin glares and lowered his voice. “Ah—Elise.”

They looked at each other.

Arthur opened his arms.

Camilla let Elise go as she scrambled out of her grasp to practically throw herself into Arthur’s arms. She frowned, a little jealous that she wasn’t the only one Elise needed to feel safe and comfortable, but didn’t say anything.

“Hey, now,” Arthur said, sounding almost fatherly. “What would Effie say if she saw you like this?”

“Sh-she’d probably be mad—” Elise hiccupped. “—that I’m crying so much.”

Arthur chuckled. “Probably. But it just can’t be helped, huh?”

Elise made a sound too quiet for Camilla to make out. Arthur seemed to hear her, though. They would probably be fine together, she thought.

“Camilla,” Severa started, sounding a little nervous. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Well—” Camilla looked over at Corrin, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention. She probably wouldn’t be missed then. “Yes, of course.”

She snuck passed Arthur and Elise in the doorway and joined Severa out on the front porch of their home.

“Sorry to drag you away from that,” Severa said, looking downward. She was twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “I know this was not at all what either of us expected to happen today… but I want you to know that I’m going to solve this. Whatever it takes.” She looked up. “I won’t let anything happen to you or your family.”

“I know,” Camilla said. She looked out at the empty street. “Do you expect something to happen to us?”

She tried to keep her voice nonchalant, but she couldn’t help the anger and protective instincts that instantly welled up in her.

“Not to any of us in particular,” Severa corrected quickly. “But… Well. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know anyone who would want to kill Effie,” Camilla said, “unless they just wanted to kill in general.”

Severa grimaced. “Yeah. I was thinking that too.”

“Hm.”

Neither of them reached out first, but it was less than a second before they were holding hands. Severa squeezed her fingers, and Camilla could feel both of their wedding rings pressing against their skin.

“I’ll figure it out,” Severa said.

Camilla kissed her on the cheek. “I trust you.”

_“Goodness, I just can’t believe it,”_ Inigo said, rambling. _“I mean, a_ murder _? Here? It doesn’t seem possible. And_ Effie _of all people! She could rip a house in half! How could anybody even…”_

Xander adjusted the phone against his cheek. The curly cord attaching the receiver to the wall kept tapping the wall every time he shifted.

“I know what you mean. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have told you this couldn’t have happened.”

And yet.

_“Yeah.”_

They were quiet for a moment. Xander could just barely make out the sounds of Owain and Niles goading each other about something in the back room with Leo. They had come in through the back door just as the house phone had begun to ring. Apparently Inigo had finally gotten home from his morning errands and read the note Xander left behind.

 _“Sorry,”_ Inigo said suddenly. _“I’m making this about me when it’s not. How are you feeling? And how’s Elise?”_

“I’m perfectly fine,” Xander said. He glanced down the hallway, but the sobbing had quieted recently. “Camilla and Corrin have been with Elise constantly since they heard the news. Leo and I have just been in and out, but she’s in good hands.”

 _“Poor Elise,”_ Inigo said mournfully. _“Poor Effie.”_

“Elise will be alright,” Xander said, because there was nothing more that could be said about Effie. “Arthur just arrived, so if there’s anyone who might understand how she’s feeling right now, it’s him. Elise is in good hands.”

 _“With you and the rest of your family there, she certainly will be,”_ Inigo said. The forced cheer in his voice would have sounded convincing if Xander hadn’t known him so well. _“Is there anything I can do? Should I ask Peri to make some comfort food? Or should I pick something up?”_

“I’ll let you know if something comes up, thank you. Camilla and Niles both separately brought ice cream, however, so I think we’re covered for now. I doubt Elise will come out for a while.”

_“Who’s taking care of the funeral?”_

Xander paused. He hadn’t thought of that. He wasn’t even sure if Effie had family; he didn’t know how to contact them or if they had even been told what had happened yet.

Elise would have known the answer to those questions, but she probably wasn’t in the position to be making those kinds of arrangements. He’d have to talk to Severa later. He wasn’t even sure where Effie’s body was being stored.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll have to see. It’s a bit too soon to decide all that.”

 _“Of course_ ,” Inigo said, sounding apologetic. _“Sorry. My brain’s just going a mile a minute. Let me know if I can do anything. I’ll pop by later to feed you and give my condolences to Elise if I don’t hear from you before lunch.”_

“Sounds like a plan,” Xander said. Truth be told, he was only half paying attention to Inigo now. He wanted to go check on Elise again; only a few minutes had passed since he’d seen her, but it already felt like it had been too long.

_“…Xander?”_

Inigo sounded solemn. Xander forced himself to tune back in. “Yes?”

_“I love you very much.”_

The receiver felt very heavy in Xander’s palm. An invisible force weighed on his shoulders.

“I love you too,” he said, meaning every word.

“I’ll kill them!” Peri cried. “Who was it? Who killed Effie? I’ll stab them a hundred times!”

Severa felt a vein throb in her forehead. “Peri, declaring you’re going to kill someone after a murder was _just_ committed does not help your alibi.”

Not to mention how tasteless it was.

“So?” Cheeks flush with anger, Peri crossed her arms. “It’s not my fault I was home alone last night. Me being mad doesn’t change the facts. Don’t you want to get revenge on whoever killed Effie too?”

“No,” Severa said quickly. Then, “I mean, yes, but not like you’re thinking. Murder is always wrong.”

Peri sniffed. “It’s not!”

“Alright, well, whatever.” There was no way Severa was going to win this argument, and she wasn’t willing to stick around to try her luck just in case she could. “Anyway, you’re _sure_ you didn’t see or hear anything last night?”

“No,” Peri said. “I told you, I was home alone!”

“Uh-huh. And you don’t know anybody who would want to hurt Effie? Or any trouble Effie might have been in?”

“Effie and I didn’t really talk much,” she said. “But she always ate my snacks whenever I offered them, and she always told me how delicious they were. Effie was nice and really strong! So whoever killed her better watch out, because I’ll tear their head off—”

“ _O_ -kay,” Severa quickly cut in. “That’s enough for now. Thanks for your help.”

“—And if you don’t find anyone, I’ll stab everyone until someone fesses up—”

“ _Thank you_ , Peri!” Severa said loudly. She reached past Peri to clutch at the door handle. “I’ll let you know if I have any further questions! Goodbye!”

With that, she slammed the door shut, enclosing Peri inside her own house. She ignored Peri’s indignant shouts of protest and swiftly made her way down the sidewalk, squinting into the late evening sun.

She faked a smile at Jakob when she saw him walking down the opposing sidewalk and then rolled her eyes when he looked impassively in her direction.

Ugh. What a day.

Peri had been a bust. So had been everyone else Severa had interviewed today. Jakob hadn’t offered up any more information when Severa doubled back to interview him a second time, Effie’s distant neighbor Beruka had been ridiculously curt, and she’s gotten nothing except guilt by the time Elise finally felt well enough to talk to her. The day had been a bust.

On top of that, it was hard to take in the full force of Elise’s despair and not feel like a big jackass for not having any concrete answers for her. On top of that, despite the fact they were Severa’s own wife and in-laws, the looks Camilla, Xander, and Leo had given her during the interrogation had really stoked the fire under her feet.

Severa didn’t have anything to offer them yet, however.

In truth, she felt a little suspect of Beruka. She had barely reacted to the news of Effie’s death. Almost as though she’d already known. And she hadn’t batted an eye at the fact it had been a murder either, which was weird because their little town hadn’t had a murder in, like, a hundred years. Even _Peri_ had been upset.

Beruka had always been a strange loner, though. Severa couldn’t say she had been involved in Effie’s death without evidence. And there was only one way to get that.

It would be a very, very long day indeed.

“Xander!” Inigo said as Xander walked into the house.

He was greeted with a kiss on the cheek and Inigo’s hand on his arm.

“How are you? Or, uh—” Inigo faltered. “How is Elise, I should say.”

“About as fine as she could be,” Xander sighed, sitting heavily in one of the chairs circling the kitchen table. “She stopped crying shortly after you left, and then cried herself to sleep about half an hour ago. So nothing unexpected.”

Inigo made a sympathetic face. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I can’t imagine how it feels to be in her position right now.”

“Neither can I,” Xander said. “If anything happened to you or the rest of my family out of the blue like that…”

He shook his head.

Inigo was quiet for a moment. Then he moved towards the microwave. “Are you hungry? I made dinner earlier, but I wasn’t sure when you’d be home, so I just put it in the mic.”

“I’m a little hungry,” Xander admitted. He was thankful when Inigo passed him the full dinner plate, which still felt mostly warm in his hands. Elise was the one who had suffered the most today, but Xander still felt wrung out. “Have you already eaten?”

“I wasn’t sure when you’d be home,” Inigo sheepishly repeated. So that was a yes then.

Xander stabbed a piece of meat with his fork and waved him off. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m glad you didn’t wait for me. I’m sorry for not calling sooner.”

“It’s alright. You were busy.”

The kitchen was quiet for a moment with only the sounds of Xander’s fork scraping against the ceramic to fill the silence. Xander felt too tired to have much to say, and Inigo looked uncharacteristically solemn whenever Xander glanced at him. Uncharacteristically quiet, too.

That didn’t bother Xander though. Inigo had always been filled with excess empathy and sympathy for the suffering of others. He probably felt nearly as hurt as Elise did.

Eventually, he was jolted out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. Xander blinked and realized he’d eaten most of his dinner without realizing. Or tasting.

“Severa will figure this out,” Inigo said almost absently, rubbing Xander’s shoulder through his shirt. “This will all be sorted out soon.”

Xander swallowed a mouthful of potato. “I hope so. For Effie and Elise’s sake, if nothing else.”

“This will be a bad memory soon enough,” Inigo promised. “I can go run a bath, if you’re in the mood.”

“Thank you. I’ll wash the dishes.”

Xander hadn’t even thought of bathing tonight, but the thought was seriously tempting now that Inigo had offered. He watched Inigo walk into the back and heard the water turn on shortly after. Although they had been separated for most of the day, he felt a surge of appreciation for Inigo. Perhaps it was Effie’s sudden end that left Xander feeling sentimental, but he wasn’t sure what he would do without the man.

**The Second Night**

Any words spoken that night were lost to the unrelenting march of time and the stillness of the night.

**The Second Day**

Finally, after a considerable amount of wasted time, Jakob finally spotted a red lump in the grass, tucked among the bushes.

He sighed and nudged the lump with his shoe.

“Wha—” Severa shot up, her pigtails limp and partially unraveled. She looked exactly like a woman who had spent an impromptu night sleeping on a lawn. “I’m up! I’m up! Where’s the—” Then she saw Jakob. “Oh. It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Jakob echoed. “I’ve been calling your home all morning, but Camilla said you never came home. What in the _world_ are you doing out here?”

“Staking out Beruka’s house, _obviously_ ,” Severa sniffed. Jakob grimaced as she wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Is she home? Did you see her?”

Jakob looked up. Beruka’s apartment looked still and quiet. As it had been all night, he suspected. “I don’t know, and no, I didn’t. Did you learn anything from watching her?”

Severa scowled. “No. She didn’t come out last night.”

“Are you sure? Because it looks like you fell asleep on the job.”

Her cheeks flushed the same shade of red as her hair. “I only fell asleep, like, two minutes ago! I was up all night watching her!”

“Mm,” Jakob said. “And you didn’t see anything suspicious? While you were up _all_ night?”

“No,” Severa swore, completely missing his sarcasm. “Not yet. Beruka is either innocent or playing the long game.”

“That’s wonderful,” Jakob said sweetly, “considering two more people died while you were out here sitting in the mud learning nothing.”

 _“WHAT?”_ Severa screeched.

Jakob flinched and raised a hand to his ear, sure his eardrums were ringing. Severa had a pair of lungs on her.

“I found Arthur dead in the street this morning,” Jakob said as Severa scrambled to her feet, looking frenzied, “and Inigo found Peri collapsed on her back porch. They both appeared to have been stabbed to death.”

 _Like Effie_ went unsaid.

“ _How_?” Severa asked, looking around as though she expected the murderer to be running around the corner with bloody clothes. “ _Three_ murders? In _two_ days? _Here_? How does that even happen!”

Her last sentence was more of an exclamation than a question. Jakob shook his head.

“Because one of us is a serial killer, I suspect,” he said dryly. The disappointment in the fact he had spent the better part of an hour and a half looking for their town’s almost-detective after the death of two more people likely showed on his face.

Severa scrubbed at her face with her knuckles. “Oh my gods. I mean.”

She looked at Jakob almost pleadingly.

“Are we sure Arthur didn’t just get attacked by squirrels or something? I mean, with his luck…”

It was a morbid question, but Jakob felt his face soften. As annoyed with Severa as he felt, he was aware that her position was a tough one—the lone person responsible for finding a needle in a haystack that held no precedent of needles even existing anywhere near it.

“I’m afraid not,” he said sympathetically. “He and Peri were both murdered. There’s no doubt about it.”

Severa pushed her face into her hands. For a moment, she said nothing. Then she lifted her head, a determine frown set on her face.

“Okay. I need to go secure the crime scenes. I can only do one at a time, so…” She looked at Jakob. “Arthur’s home is closest to here. Can you go to Peri’s and make sure nobody tampers with any evidence until I can get there?”

“That, I can do,” Jakob said. It was Severa’s job alone, but there was no way he could say no, considering the situation.

“Thanks,” she said. Then, somewhat sourly, she added, “Thanks for finding me. Sorry that I wasn’t where I should have been. I really thought…”

She looked at Beruka’s still house.

“No matter dwelling on that now,” Jakob said stiffly. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”

Severa nodded. “I just hope there’s actual evidence this time.”

Jakob scoffed. “There have been three murders in total so far. Nobody could get away from all three crime scenes _that_ perfectly.”

She shook her head, wishing she didn’t feel nearly as uncertain as she did.

“We’ll see,” she said.

“Something doesn’t seem right about this,” Niles said.

Slouched in an armchair the corner of the room and feeling frazzled, Leo eyed him. “There’s been three separate murders, Niles. Of course it doesn’t seem right.”

Niles opened his mouth to reply, but they both paused when Owain sauntered back into the room, fresh off the phone.

“Owain.” Leo sat up. “How is Inigo?”

“Dismayed!” Owain announced, covering his face with one hand and striking some sort of pose with the other. “His soul has been tainted with despair since he stumbled upon our fallen ally! A darkness has stricken his mind and body, and even under the care of his devoted partner, he has yet to recover.”

“Owain, _please_ ,” Leo said, annoyed. “People are dead. Speak normally.”

Owain deflated. He drew his shoulders up around his ears, abashed. “Sorry. Um. Inigo threw up when he found Peri, but he still feels sick. Xander is taking care of him.”

Leo sent him an unhappy glance. Then he sighed, forcing himself to relax. “No, I’m sorry. This is no less stressful for you than it is for me.”

“It’s fine,” Owain said. The fact he didn’t say more told Leo that Owain wasn’t fully comfortable still. He internally winced.

The atmosphere felt thick with unease. Leo trusted Owain and Niles implicitly; there were no false pretenses between them. Still, the knowledge that not one but three separate people they had known and been friends with were now dead sat heavy in the air.

Leo had been on friendly terms with Effie. He’d always felt she’d been a great friend to Elise. She had a pure, enduring heart and hadn’t deserved to go like that.

Peri, although childish and sometimes difficult to talk to, had been good friends with Xander and Inigo. She’d owned the bakery that everyone in town frequented. Leo didn’t like to picture the shop sitting there on the corner, empty and cold for the rest of time.

And Arthur had been in Camilla’s home, knocking over teacups and making Elise giggle through her tears only yesterday.

They were all good people.

The fact they’d so easily been killed in the span of just two days… It boggled Leo’s mind.

Niles reached up and, grabbing Owain by the wrist, yanked him down onto the couch. Owain went sprawling, half on the couch and half in Niles’s lap with a soft “Oof!”

Leo stared. Was Niles flirting, now of all times?

Owain twisted himself around and scrambled out of Niles’s lap. He sat up on one of the couch cushions next to Niles, blinking with confusion. “Niles?”

“As I was saying,” Niles said smoothly, “there’s something strange about all this.”

“Stranger than there being a serial killer?” Owain asked.

Niles raised a finger.

“That’s just the thing,” he said. “I think there are two culprits.”

“You do?” Leo asked. That was a bold accusation.

Owain, meanwhile, already seemed enamored with the idea. He slammed a closed fist into his palm. “An accomplice! How devious!”

Frowning, Leo focused on Niles. “What makes you think there’s more than one person?”

“I had my suspicions when I saw Effie’s body, based on her injuries,” he began to explain. “Then, when I saw Arthur—"

“You saw Effie’s body?” Leo asked right as Owain overlapped with, “You saw Arthur this morning?”

“Obviously,” Niles drawled.

Owain looked as surprised as Leo felt. “But I thought Severa secured the scene already?”

Niles’s self-satisfaction was palpable. “Yes, because some measly tape and a flimsy door lock are so difficult to bypass.”

“Fair enough,” Leo said, because it wasn’t as though Niles didn’t have a history of snooping. He’d heard rumor of Niles bickering with one person or another for following up on curiosities that weren’t his to investigate before. “And what did you learn? Start from the beginning.”

“First, Effie,” Niles said. He held up a finger. “We all know how strong she was. Even if she’d been taken by surprise, she wasn’t the type of person to be held back by pain—even after being stabbed.”

That was true enough, Leo supposed. He’d once witnessed Effie accidentally give herself a rather sizable cut while chopping wood, and she hadn’t so much as flinched as she wandered off to find some bandages to slow the bleeding.

Niles continued. “Her throat wasn’t slit. She’d been stabbed in the side, which isn’t necessarily immediately fatal. She probably had about a minute or so to fight back against her attacker until the blood loss made her too dizzy or weak. And yet when I saw the entryway where she died, there was nothing out of place except some dried blood on the floor. It looked like she had collapsed where she stood without fighting back. Why?”

“Well, there were multiple stab wounds,” Leo pointed out. He’d overheard Severa say as much yesterday before she’d left.

“Exactly,” Niles said. “ _Multiple_ stab wounds. The attacker was able to overpower her even after they’d lost the element of surprise. How?”

“Because they were really fast?” Owain guessed.

“Or there was more than one of them.”

Niles looked somewhat smug at that suggestion, but Leo wasn’t wholly convinced. Shock was a hell of a drug. Effie collapsing from her wounds without fighting back didn’t mean she had been cornered by multiple people. It just meant she hadn’t or couldn’t fight back. 

“Hm,” he said thoughtfully. “Continue.”

“Secondly, we have to consider who the victims were,” Niles said. “Arthur may have been the clumsiest man on earth, but he was still a grown man and a force to be reckoned with. He gave Benny a run for his money in that wrestling contest last year, remember?”

“I do,” Leo said. He very much wished he did not. His face felt warm just thinking about it.

“Arthur was a large man,” Niles continued. “Even considering his accursed luck, I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t have at least _tried_ to fight off a singular attacker, even if he accidentally stabbed himself in the process. But he apparently ran from the attacker instead. He made it into the street, even. But nobody heard him cry out. Why is that?”

“Why did he run, you mean, or why did nobody hear him?”

“Both.”

Leo began to wrack his brain for reasonable explanations, but Owain beat him to the punch.

“Alas,” Owain said, clutching a hand to his chest. “The dark, illusory world that seizes us in its clutches each night is a hard force to overcome.”

“Everyone was sleeping,” Leo clarified. Owain looked a little put out that Leo had simplified it so much but nodded.

“That’s one explanation.” Niles tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Can you think of any others?”

Leo shrugged. “It’s also possible he was silenced before he was able to get anyone’s attention.”

“Or a combination of the two,” Niles said, nodding. “It was late, everyone was asleep, and whoever was attacking him was able to silence him before anyone woke up from the noise.”

“And you think Arthur ran because it was two versus one,” Leo said slowly. “And that he was quickly overtaken for the same reason.”

“Exactly.” Niles looked pleased with himself and proud of Leo for having followed his logic. “Now, there’s Peri to consider. Peri was a short woman, but she knew her way around the kitchen. Particularly the knives. And she was quite bloodthirsty.”

“Except Peri never murdered anyone,” Leo said.

“That we know of,” Owain muttered, giving Leo the side eye.

Leo kept his mouth shut. Admittedly, he had some doubts about that one himself. But it wasn’t good to speak ill of the dead.

Niles rolled his eye. “You can’t tell me that woman didn’t carry a knife on her at all times, even in the middle of the night.”

Owain opened his mouth, probably to agree, but Leo cut him off with, “Okay, we can’t go supposing things like that unless you actually _know_ Peri regularly kept a knife on her person at all hours of the day.”

Though, honestly, he wouldn’t have put it past her.

Owain pouted in Leo’s direction, and Leo ignored it.

“That’s fair enough,” Niles relented. “I’ll rephrase then. We can all agree that Peri would have put up a fight no matter how badly the odds were stacked against her, correct?”

Although probably true enough, Leo thought it was strange that so far all three victims were categorized as people who would have fought back no matter what. They weren’t Leo’s idea of an easy victim, that was for sure.

He said, “For the sake of the argument, let’s just say yes.”

“And yet, once _again_ , she is murdered with minimal signs of struggle in her home,” Niles said. “How? Peri had been found on her back porch. She hadn’t been sleeping in her bed, unaware. So how did the killer take her out so easily? And why attack two victims in the same night? That’s too big of a risk for a regular serial killer to take.”

Owain hummed loudly in thought. “If they had a partner, surely the killer would feel more confident than they would have if they were working alone. Very clever.”

“It’s not impossible,” Niles said to Leo, seeing that Owain was on his side, “considering what we know. It would have been difficult for one person to overpower Effie and Arthur, even with the element of surprise. The stab wounds didn’t look like they all came from the same angle of attack. There were minimal signs of struggle in each victim’s home. The neighbors apparently didn’t hear anything. Two murders in one night is a big risk for one person to take on alone…”

“Alright, alright,” Leo said, waving a hand to cut him off. “Give me a second to think, please.”

Both Niles and Owain went quiet as Leo drummed his fingers on the arm of his seat.

He still wasn’t wholly convinced the killer couldn’t be a singular individual who had a lot of skill—or who simply had gotten lucky in their cockiness. But given the evidence Niles had laid before them, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of two killers working together either.

“Have you told Severa about these suspicions yet?” he finally asked.

At this, Niles’s smugness faded. He looked almost grim, in fact. “Not yet. I wanted to run it by you first.”

“Why?” Owain asked, shifting in his seat on the couch and furrowing his brow. “That seems like very pertinent information for her to know, my sly friend.”

Niles didn’t immediately answer. He looked towards Leo, gaze unwavering, and Leo sighed.

“Because of what it means,” he said. “If there really are two killers—and we don’t know that for sure yet—that means suggesting that not one but _two_ separate people who are working together to kill.”

Owain gave him a look that said, _Obviously._ “That’s two people who need to be brought to justice!”

“That’s two people we who have been lying to us,” Niles said. Leo pressed his mouth into an uneasy line; given the population size of the town—more of a village, really—they almost definitively knew the killer. Or killers. “Two people we know who betrayed us.”

“Who are probably our neighbors,” Leo said solemnly. “Or even our friends.”

Suddenly, Owain looked a lot less excited at the prospect of a second killer running around.

Niles nudged Owain’s shoulder with his own, causing Owain to look up at him. His uncertain look didn’t change, but when Niles tilted his head a certain way, Owain visibly untensed just a little, like he’d received an assurance in a language Leo couldn’t quite articulate.

He knew the feeling, though. He and Niles shared looks like that all the time.

“In any case, I’ll tell Severa what I know as soon as I see her,” Niles said.

“Leaving out the parts about you breaking and entering,” Leo said pointedly.

Niles placed a hand over his chest and feigned hurt. “Of course, dear. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Perhaps Severa has already come to a similar conclusion,” Owain said optimistically. 

In Severa’s defense, it wasn’t like the idea of there being two killers hadn’t occurred to her. It was just that she couldn’t find any solid evidence for it.

Sure, when Niles laid his thoughts out, he made it sound so _obvious_. Like, of course there had to be two killers working together. _Duh_.

But the truth of the matter was, that evidence was all circumstantial. In a town this small, what were the odds that not one but _two_ people decided to start offing their fellow citizens out of the blue?

There hadn’t been an extra set of footprints at any of the scenes. There hadn’t been any footprints, period. Nor had there been any feats of strength that were completely impossible for single person to pull off. It wasn’t impossible for a single person to have killed Peri, Arthur, and Effie either. Sure, Effie and Arthur had been beefcakes, but so was Benny. And so was Charlotte, although she tried to hide her muscles under those frilly shirts and dresses she wore. Either of them probably could have killed Effie or Arthur by themself and gotten away with it.

Hm. That was a thought. She’d follow up on that later. Peri and Charlotte had lived next to each other, after all.

Anyway, she knew there were possibly two killers on the loose. She just didn’t know that for a fact.

More importantly, Severa had to figure out a pattern to the killings. It didn’t matter if there were one or two or twenty people running around committing murders if she couldn’t figure out who the next victim would be and put a stop to it.

Initially, she had assumed Effie to be a one-off attack. She’d thought Effie’s death had been because of some unknown factor or entity in Effie’s life specifically. But now, Peri and Arthur’s death changed things.

What did all the victims have in common? They all knew each other, certainly. The whole town knew each other. So that angle was a bust.

Did location have something to do with it? Probably not. Effie lived on one side of town, Peri on the other. Arthur had lived somewhere between them. Not much in common there.

Arthur and Effie had been good friends, though. Better friends with Elise than each other, probably, but definitely good friends. Elise had always been going out to visit Effie or Arthur’s house or they had always been stopping by Camilla and Severa’s place to see Elise. Barely a day went by without a visit.

If not for Peri, Severa might have assumed Elise to be the common denominator in the murders. But Peri hadn’t really known Elise. She came over whenever Elise and her family held holiday dinners and the like, sure, but that was more on Inigo and Xander’s behalf. Severa never saw Peri and Elise interact otherwise. 

It wasn’t like Peri and Effie had been good friends either. They had nothing in common, Severa was sure.

Had Peri and Arthur been friends? She wavered on that thought and then felt guilty for not knowing. She’d been growing close to Peri ever since the cooking competition last New Year. She was never going to be able to make lemon tarts without thinking of cotton-candy hair and crybaby attitudes ever again. And Arthur had always thanked her for the horseshoes and dandelions she left on his doorstep whenever she walked by his place. He had always been more than happy to help carry her dozens of shopping bags across town at the drop of a hat, too.

If she’d been that good of a friend to either of them, shouldn’t she have known how Arthur and Peri felt about each other?

Shouldn’t she have been able to bring their murderers to justice by now?

No, she thought. Focus. No crying until the work was done.

Biting her lip, Severa tried to think about a pattern. What did the victims have in common? Who shared those traits with them?

Was the connection to Elise after all and Peri was just a red herring? Or was the connection their social circle, the fact they all tended to congregate at Xander or Camilla’s homes during the holiday season, for one reason or another? If that was the case, Severa, Inigo, Niles, and a whole bunch of people were in danger too. That was practically half the town right there.

Were the murders totally random? Maybe the killer didn’t care who they killed, so long as they got to kill _someone_ , she thought. Maybe Effie, Arthur, and Peri had been picked because they lived alone and they were just unlucky. It could have been simply luck of the draw.

Or was there something else, some other connection that Severa couldn’t see just yet that would crack the case wide open in a split second if she only knew it? There was no way of knowing yet.

Around and around, the same few theories spun in her head, and by the time the sun hit its zenith on the second day, Severa didn’t feel any closer to finding out the truth.

Xander made sure to tap the door gently with his knuckles before walking in. Although there was no reason for Inigo not to have seen him standing in the doorway to their shared bedroom for several seconds before knocking, when Xander knocked, Inigo still jumped so sharply that Xander might as well have fired a canon.

“Sorry,” he said when Inigo jerked his head around to look at him. “I just wanted to see how you were feeling.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Inigo quickly reassured him, leaning back in his chair by the window. “I’m feeling better now, actually. Thank you.”

His pale face said otherwise. When Xander had rushed over to Peri’s residence early that morning in the car they rarely used except to travel somewhere outside of town, he’d found his husband shaken, face the color of ash, staring off into the distance on Peri’s porch. The mess in the flower bed next to him made it quite clear that whatever Inigo had seen inside had unsettled him greatly.

Xander had only taken a second to glance at the blood on Inigo’s palm and to get verbal confirmation that he wasn’t injured before ushering Inigo into the car. The proper calls had been made, he received assurances Severa would be informed as soon as anyone found her, and then he had taken them back to the house to be cleaned up.

Inigo had only spoken a little about what he’d seen since then. About how it had felt, finding Peri collapsed halfway out her back door in a puddle of dark blood.

He’d also gotten sick at least once more since then. The plate Xander had brought him an hour ago still looked untouched on the bedside table.

There was a hole in Xander’s chest where Peri should have been too, but he couldn’t let himself dwell on that just yet. Not when Inigo must have been hurting even more for being the one to have found her.

“Good,” he said, pretending to take Inigo’s word for it, although he clearly wasn’t feeling any better. “And how’s your leg feeling?”

He tilted his chin towards Inigo’s bandaged ankle. Inigo glanced down, looking vaguely surprised, as though he’d forgotten about it.

“Also good,” Inigo said. He rubbed his knee absently, where the skin may have still been a bit raw. “It’s really not that bad. I’ll be better tomorrow, probably.”

That was also a lie. Inigo had used the ice pack Xander gave him for the better part of an hour, and the skin still had looked swollen and tender by the time the ice has melted. It was impossible to tell if it had really improved with the bandages in the way, but Xander was willing to bet it hadn’t.

Inigo’s swollen ankle was the reason he’d found Peri like that in the first place. Xander almost wished he had never trained his husband into becoming an early riser like him. Inigo never would have been the one to find her like that otherwise, he thought.

That morning, Inigo had left for his morning jog just as the sun began to rise, just like he always did. Xander had still been in the shower when Inigo stumbled out the door into the early dawn, bleary eyed, wearing clothes that would inevitably end up piled on the bedroom floor when Inigo came back for his own shower and a nap.

It wasn’t until Xander had begun to gently wash the dried blood off Inigo’s palm that he realized how off-kilter Inigo was standing. How he refused to put weight on one leg. When he looked down, he’d seen how swollen Inigo’s right ankle appeared.

When he had asked about Inigo’s leg, Inigo had stared at Xander for a while before explaining in choppy stops and starts how he had tripped and hurt himself while jogging. That, rather than limp the whole way home on a bad leg, he had sheepishly gone to bother Peri for some bandages and ice when he’d found her front door cracked open and stuck his head inside, curious.

He hadn’t explained more than that. Xander had put the pieces together from there.

“Mm.” He moved into the room and put a hand on Inigo’s shoulder before pressing his lips to Inigo’s forehead. Inigo allowed it but didn’t otherwise react. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

Inigo huffed affectionately. He looked drained. “I appreciate the offer, Xander, but I’m not bedbound. I’m just…”

“I know,” he said. “I just want you to know I’m here for you.”

Inigo looked out the window. “Thank you.”

They were both quiet for a moment. When Xander looked out into the street as well, he found the road to be empty. He glanced down and saw the expression on Inigo’s face to be somewhere far away.

There was no way he wasn’t thinking about Peri. About what he’d seen. There was nothing Xander could do to distract him from those thoughts short of shoving him out of the room, and he doubted Inigo would have appreciated that.

It had only been a few hours. Inigo just needed more time.

Xander needed to do some thinking of his own too. Peri didn’t have any still living blood family. He’d have to take care of her funeral arrangements. Figure out what would happen with her home and belongings. And he needed to mourn.

But Peri was dead, and Inigo was still here. He needed to strike a balance with these things, amongst his own grief. 

“When you’re ready to talk…” Xander began.

“I will,” Inigo said, blinking quickly. “Just—not right now. Sorry.”

“Of course. I’ll be in the living room making some phone calls. Just yell for me if you need anything, alright?”

“Sure,” Inigo said, but his voice sounded absent.

Feeling out of sorts, Xander left Inigo sitting in that same window seat and gently closed the door behind him. The house was silent.

Xander stood in the hallway for a moment, thinking.

Of course he believed Inigo’s story. How could he not? They were married, after all. And, of course, they had both loved Peri.

He would be there for Inigo. And Peri, as much as he could be there for her post-mortem.

He wouldn’t leave Inigo’s side until the killers were caught. He wouldn’t lose Inigo too. Not after failing Peri.

Arms crossed and gaze unimpressed, Jakob asked, “Don’t you think it’s strange that Inigo went home with a limp earlier?”

Severa pushed her limp bangs away from her forehead. Ugh, she needed to shower. Sleeping outside never did anyone any favors. “What are you talking about?”

They were loitering outside Keaton’s place. Technically, Severa had been loitering and Jakob had showed up to bother her about what progress she’d made again. But since Jakob had refused to leave after several pointed questions, she considered them both to be loitering.

When would Keaton be back, she wondered? She needed to use his dogs.

“Inigo’s leg,” Jakob said. “Corrin told me he had a limp. Is that true?”

Severa waved her hand. “Yeah. Apparently, he tripped on air during his morning jog. That’s why he found Peri’s body. He went to her place instead of home.”

“Pretty graceless for a dancer.”

Something about that made Severa’s gut twinge. “I guess.”

“And who said he tripped?” Jakob pressed. “Xander or Inigo?”

She frowned. She had interviewed them together. “Does it matter?”

“Maybe,” Jakob said.

He sniffed and then made a face. Probably smelling that same dog smell that had already burnt itself into Severa’s nostrils. Was she better off checking the dog park? Had Keaton taken his million dogs to the vet the next town over at the same time?

“Okay,” Severa said slowly. The back of her neck prickled. “Are you trying to suggest something here or are you just being nosy?”

“Both,” Jakob said, unselfconscious. “Don’t you think it’s strange that the only other person to discover a body left the scene injured?”

Severa stared. Her jaw snapped shut.

“Yeah, well, you might say it’s pretty suspicious that _you_ discovered a victim two days in a row,” she retorted.

Jakob looked unphased. “Yes, and that _would_ be suspicious, except that that I slept on the couch last night, and Corrin can attest to the fact neither of us ever left the house until well into the morning. Peri and Arthur were killed before that. You said that yourself.”

“Inigo didn’t go out until the morning either!”

“He left just before the sun had risen,” Jakob said. “That’s at least two hours before most reasonable people are awake, and the streets still would have been dark. He had plenty of time to kill Peri and get away without any witnesses.” He paused. “Unless he sustained an injury during the scuffle—”

Severa scoffed. Loudly. “You’re trying to tell me _Inigo_ of all people—Inigo, who cries of stage freight and romantic comedies—would actually—"

“I’m not telling you anything,” Jakob cut in, “except not to let friendship blind you to possibility.”

“Peri was one of his best friends!” Severa yelled.

She had been one of Severa’s good friends too, a little voice whispered inside her. She squashed it down.

She said, “Inigo would be the last person in the world to actually kill someone. Especially Peri. I can promise you that.”

“If you say so,” Jakob said, looking at her coolly. She glared. “I’ll take my leave now.”

“Good,” Severa said, and then watched with crossed arms as he walked away.

She didn’t see Keaton and his million dogs on the horizon, but whatever. That was for the best anyway. Severa needed a few minutes to cool off.

Friend or not, there was no way Inigo could commit a _murder._ Anyone with a brain knew that.

Jakob didn’t know what he was talking about.

Dinner that night was a morose affair. Niles and Owain insisted on staying for solidarity reasons. Niles, Leo understood, since they were married. Owain, on the other hand, was more than welcome to leave. It probably would have made more sense if he left, actually, but he’d insisted he stay and Leo had initially felt grateful that there would be someone else there to break up the tension.

But still. A morose affair.

“Severa will be coming a bit later,” Camilla had announced as she pulled a tray from the oven. With all the pre-made food Leo, Niles, and the others had brought over yesterday and today, the Camilla, Severa, and Elise household were on no shortage of food. “She told us not to wait up for her.”

The image of Elise and Camilla sitting around the table in silence weighed on Leo too much to leave them. Which was how Leo, Niles, and Owain ended up joining them.

Still in mostly silence.

But at least his sisters weren’t alone, he thought.

There was little sound aside from the scraping of forks against plates and the occasional comment on the food. Camilla often kept looking between Elise and the front door—waiting for Severa to come home, Leo thought.

Every few minutes or so, Niles nudged Leo’s foot under the table with his own. After the third time, Leo began nudging him back. To his relief, the others didn’t seem to notice.

What _Leo_ noticed, however, was that Owain kept shooting Elise strange looks, he noticed, but it was hard to tell if that was just Owain being himself or if he was looking at something in particular.

Leo frowned.

“Elise?” Camilla said, breaking the silence.

Leo jerked to attention.

“You’ve barely touched your food,” Camilla said. She touched Elise’s forehead gently. “Do you still have that headache?”

She was right, Leo noted. Elise’s plate was still full.

“…Maybe,” Elise said, poking at her plate with her fork. “I don’t feel very hungry.”

“Do you want some more medicine?” Camilla asked.

Elise shook her head. The corners of her mouth were pinched downwards, as they had been all day. “Can I go to bed? I don’t feel like eating right now. Sorry.”

Camilla and Leo exchanged worried looks, but Camilla still said, “Sure. I’ll put the leftovers in the fridge for you, okay? If you feel hungry later, you’ll know where they are.”

“Thanks,” Elise said softly. She pushed herself away from the table and quietly slipped into her bedroom down the hall. The whole table watched her go.

When the door closed, Camilla grabbed her half-full plate and stood up from the table with a sigh. “I suppose I’m not very famished either.”

“Camilla,” Leo began, but she was already waving him off.

“I’m fine, Leo,” Camilla said tiredly. “I’ll just clean this up and lay down for a while.”

“I can do that,” he said, moving to stand. Niles and Owain echoed him.

Camilla, now holding both her and Elise’s plates, shook her head. “No. It’s really fine. I need to keep my hands busy anyway. _Please_.”

The force of her “ _please_ ” caused Leo to sit right back down. She sent him a strained smile.

“Thank you. Feel free to keep eating. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Camilla disappeared into the kitchen.

Leo looked down at his own plate, still mostly full. He no longer felt very hungry either.

He looked up as Niles touched his arm.

“Grief tends to fill us up and leave little room for much else,” Niles told him. “Elise may just need to be alone tonight, and Camilla is empathetic to that. They’ve got a lot on their minds right now. If Elise is still refusing to eat tomorrow, then you and Camilla can push it a little more.”

“I know.” Leo sighed. “You’re right. It’s just…”

Niles kissed his cheek. “Frustrating, I know.”

That was one way to put it.

Leo glanced over to his left, wondering what Owain had to say about things. He always had a comment to share—welcome or not.

Except Owain wasn’t looking at him. He was looking down the hallway to Elise’s bedroom and didn’t seem to notice the silence until Leo snapped his fingers next to Owain’s ear.

“Hello?” Leo said curiously. “What are you staring at?”

“Huh?” Owain blinked. “Oh. Nothing.”

“Your answer is less than three sentences long, so I know that’s not true,” Leo said. Not to mention the strange look on Owain’s face. “Seriously, what have you been staring at?”

“Uh…”

“Please. His silence speaks for itself,” Niles said.

Owain’s mouth twisted, and his eyes darted around the room until finally coming to rest on Leo and Niles once more. Their unimpressed looks didn’t waver.

“Okay,” Owain finally said. “I guess… Elise just seems… off?”

“Off?” Leo echoed.

Owain shrugged. He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before continuing. “I don’t know. She just seems sort of strange, I guess.”

For a second, Leo wondered if Owain was about to follow up with some ill-advised comment about how the spirits of her deceased friends were weighing on her or something. He preemptively tensed at the thought.

But Owain didn’t say anything like that. He didn’t say anything else, actually.

Leo squinted at him. Owain wasn’t making any weird gestures and he hadn’t projected his voice about a hundred decibels louder than it needed to be, so Leo knew he was being genuine.

That said, he wasn’t sure what to make of Owain’s comment.

“Strange how?” he finally settled on asking.

Owain looked at the hall and chewed on his inner cheek. “Like… not genuine, I guess?”

“Are you suggesting my sister is _faking_ her grief?” Leo said, affronted.

“What?” Owain blinked. “No? I mean… I guess?”

He could hardly believe what he was hearing.

“Her two best friends were _murdered_ ,” Leo hissed, careful to keep his voice low despite his hackles rising. “And you’re bothered because she’s not, what, crying for the fortieth hour straight so she can feel more genuine to you?”

Owain looked taken aback. “That’s not what I—”

“Is there a problem here?” Camilla asked icily from the kitchen doorway.

Leo didn’t turn his head. “No. Owain was just about to leave.”

A mixture of emotions flashed across Owain’s face as he looked between the siblings, but to his credit, he didn’t argue or try to justify himself. He shut his mouth and kept it shut as he stiffly led himself to the front door.

Camilla watched him go with a slight turn of her head while Leo and Niles remained seated. Although only Camilla was at the right angle to see the entrance, they all heard the sound of the front door opening.

It didn’t immediately close, however.

“Woah,” Owain said.

“Oh!” Corrin’s surprised voice carried into the dining room. “Owain! I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“I was just leaving, actually.” There was a shuffling of footsteps. “Goodbye.”

“Goodnight?”

Footsteps—presumably Owain’s—grew distant. The front door closed.

A moment later, Corrin popped their head into the dining room.

“Knock-knock,” they said hesitantly. “Is… now a bad time?”

“Nonsense,” Camilla said. She threw the kitchen towel in her hands over her shoulder and hustled Corrin into a hug. “You know you’re always welcome in this house. I just didn’t expect you to be coming so late! I would have saved you a plate if I’d known.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Corrin said, hugging her back and then stepping away. “I ate with Jakob earlier.”

“And where is Jakob?” Leo asked, half expecting the man to bluster in behind Corrin at any moment.

They made a sheepish face. “I sort of ditched him for the night. Don’t tell him I said it like that, though. Jakob’s great and all. He can just be…”

“A little much?” Niles suggested.

Leo looked over. He hadn’t realized how silent Niles had been until that moment.

“Yeah.” Corrin shot him a crooked smile.

“And you’d rather spend a stressful time like this with family, of course.” Camilla beamed. “Don’t be sorry for that, dear. It’s only natural! Take a load off while you’re here. Should I go make the spare room for you? Or do you want to talk about—”

“Actually, I was wondering if Elise was still up?” Corrin said, even more sheepishly. “Maybe she’s not. I just…”

“She’s in her room,” Leo said. “She went in just a minute ago. I don’t know if she wants any visitors though.”

Camilla sadly explained, “She wasn’t feeling well, I’m afraid.”

“Do you mind if I see if she’s up for it?” Corrin asked. “I’ll leave if she’s not, of course. I just haven’t seen much of her today, and…”

Leo inclined his head. He understood.

“Of course,” Camilla said. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.”

Corrin shot her a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

Leo listened as they disappeared down the hall. After a moment, there was the tiniest of knocking sounds. After another moment, there was the soft sound of a door opening and closing.

The house was silent.

Niles sipped his drink.

“Do you want us to stay here for the night?” Leo asked after a while, seemingly breaking Camilla out of her reverie. “Since Severa didn’t come back last night and she might not be back until late tonight, I mean.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Camilla said with a sigh. She toyed with the edge of the towel on her shoulder and glanced behind herself into the kitchen. “I’ll be here with Elise, and I might even make Corrin stay so they won’t have to walk across town in the dark. It’ll be like a party. Don’t worry about us.”

Leo frowned. When Camilla saw this, she grinned.

“Oh, is my baby brother worried about me? Don’t worry, Leo, you know I know how to protect the family when the need arises.”

She gestured to the ornate axe that hung on the wall. A family heirloom taken from their father’s house long ago.

Niles nudged Leo with his elbow and teasingly said, “I promise to protect you too, if you’re really that scared.”

Feeling his face heat, Leo said, “I am _not_ scared. I am reasonably concerned for the well-being of my siblings, considering the circumstances.”

Niles looked smug.

“If that’s the case,” Leo sighed, choosing to ignore them, “then Niles and I should make our way back home before it gets too late.”

Nobody had gotten through dinner completely, but Niles nodded in agreement when Leo looked at him questioningly.

“Be safe,” Camilla said as they pushed themselves up from the table and gathered their things. “And call me when you get home. I’ll call you over and over if you don’t.”

“Please,” Leo said. “We’ll be fine.”

**The Third Night**

Severa crouched in the bushes across the street from Inigo and Xander’s place, chiding herself and justifying her actions in turn.

She’d gone home for an hour or two before sneaking into the bushes, of course. Apparently, she’d missed dinner with Owain and her in-laws. Probably for the better. Severa hadn’t felt like entertaining questions she didn’t have answers to; it had probably been best that she spent time with just Camilla anyway, talking in low voices in the living room so as not to bother a sleeping Elise and Corrin. They’d been apart a lot the last few days, and it was taking its toll. She hadn’t wanted to leave, really.

Camilla probably hadn’t wanted her to go either, but she hadn’t said it. She’d seen Severa off with a kiss and a reminder to call if there was any trouble. Severa had promised to do so.

She hadn’t promised not to spy on Camilla’s other brother and Inigo, but she felt guilty for it anyway. It felt like an implicit promise. A promise to trust friends and family and not suspect any of them capable of heinous crimes.

With three people dead, trust had gone out the window. Reasonably.

Still, it felt bad.

She told herself that it wasn’t like she _really_ believed Jakob’s dumb suspicions about Inigo. There was no doubt in her mind about Inigo’s story. Him stumbling upon Peri like that—it was just an accident. His swollen ankle and the blood on his hand were coincidences.

Except.

Well, it was better to make sure, wasn’t it? To remove all reasonable doubt, so Jakob couldn’t try to argue that Inigo was a murderer again later. It just made sense.

In the glow of Xander and Inigo’s living room window, she could see the shape of Xander sitting on a silhouetted couch, Inigo sleeping on his shoulder. Neither of them looked ready to move anytime soon. Neither of them had any idea she was there.

She’d just watch them for a while, prove Inigo was completely innocent, and then go home without anyone being the wiser. It’d be fine.

Yeah. Good plan.

This was definitely—

Something hard slammed into the back of Severa’s skull without warning.

Darkness.

**The Third Day**

Leo rubbed at his dry eyes. He could feel a headache coming on. The image of Owain—pale and silent and covered in bandages—flashed on the backs of his eyelids. The only solace he could find in the sight had been the regular rise and fall of Owain’s chest. It wasn’t much.

“Walk me through the events of last night,” he finally said, scrubbing at his face and looking up.

Niles, sitting on the opposing couch in Owain’s living room, said, “Leo—"

“I asked you not to go on any more walks until this was all over.” Leo looked at his husband flatly. “Tell me.”

A heavy beat passed as they silently regarded one another.

Finally, Niles relented.

“I know I promised not to stargaze anymore,” he said wryly, although the downward slope of his mouth gave away the seriousness of his words, “but I had a hunch.”

“A hunch,” Leo repeated flatly.

“I arrived here—”

“You snuck out of bed, purposely, without waking me.”

Niles tilted his head. “Would you like to tell this story, or shall I?”

Leo pursed his lips but gave Niles the silent go-ahead. Niles nodded.

“I arrived here sometime around four,” Niles said. “Apparently just in time. I loitered on the sidewalk for a few minutes and was just about to return home when I heard a shout and some other noise.”

He gestured towards the kitchen—towards the busted window and the glass scattered across the tile that they still hadn’t cleaned up for evidential purposes. There were still a few small, half-dried pools of blood in there.

“The front door was locked and I didn’t want to bother checking around back, so I forced my way through the window,” Niles continued.

The bandages wrapped around his hand and arm led credibility to that explanation. Part of Leo wanted to unwrap those bandages and see how badly the damage was. The other part watched him critically.

“The lights were off as I came inside, so I couldn’t see anything. I think just coming in scared the attacker off, however, since I heard the sounds of someone running away and the back door was ajar when I turned the lights on.”

“But you didn’t see anyone,” Leo said.

Niles shook his head. “I saw Owain, on the floor, unconscious. It looked like he clipped his head on the kitchen table when he went down. I was more focused on him than chasing after a shadow in the dark.”

 _When he went down._ Because Owain hadn’t just stumbled and fallen over for no reason. Someone had attacked him. There’d been a struggle. Niles had sewn shut the slices on his hands and arms. The long gash in his side where he must have diverted the knife the killer was trying to stab him with. Owain had been fighting someone.

Until he’d apparently hit his head and knocked himself out.

Until Niles apparently scared the killer off before they could give the finishing blow.

Goosebumps broke out along Leo’s neck.

“I did what I could,” Niles said when Leo didn’t say anything. “With the hospital two hours away… You know I know first aid. Stitches are easy. I know he looks terrible, but I checked him over. He’s not actually that bad off. He’ll live.”

“I’ll feel better if Owain could wake up and tell us that himself.”

“He’ll wake up,” Niles said.

Leo didn’t reply to that. A dozen different trains of thought were shooting through his head at once.

Coming from anyone else, he might have been skeptical of Niles’s story. But this was Niles, his husband, and Leo knew Niles as well as he knew how they both felt about Owain. There was no alternative to be considered.

But even with all he’d said being true, parts of his story still stung. Like the fact Niles had left their home in the middle of the night after promising Leo that he wouldn’t. Like the fact he hadn’t said anything before he’d left. That he’d purposely hid his actions from Leo, when the very fact they were married meant they were supposed to tell each other everything.

Like the fact Owain could have easily died last night, and the last thing Leo had told him was to get lost.

Silently, Niles rose from his seat and slid into the seat next to Leo. Although Leo didn’t acknowledge him, Niles took Leo’s hand in his own and kissed his cheek. A series of conflicted emotions rose within Leo at the act—frustration, guilt, annoyance—but the strongest feeling of them all was gratitude.

“This hunch you mentioned,” Leo said, tired and pointedly ignoring the lump that tried to rise in his throat, “what is it? What made you think Owain was in danger?”

Niles held his hand tightly. “I can’t tell you that yet.”

“What?” Leo said, pulling back. Niles didn’t let go. “Owain almost _died_ , you caught a murder in the act, and you don’t want to tell me what made you suspect Owain was in danger? That’s—”

“I know,” Niles said grimly. “I know. I’m asking a lot. But as your husband, Leo, I’m asking you to trust me for now. Please.”

Leo stared at him.

“You’re right,” he said. “This is a lot to ask.”

Niles said nothing. He pulled Leo’s hand close to his mouth and kissed his knuckles.

Leo loved this man.

“Please,” Niles whispered against his skin. “I promise to tell you when I’m sure of it. But for now, please trust me. The last thing I want to do is speak too soon.”

For better or for worse, they’d promised.

“…Alright,” Leo said. He squeezed Niles’s hand and saw the relief when Niles’s shoulders dropped. “For now. But please tell me soon.”

“I will,” Niles swore, pressing his forehead against Leo’s shoulder.

Leo closed his eyes. They leaned against each other, the morning quiet and still. They were both, Leo was sure, very aware of the bloody and broken Owain sleeping in the next room.

A few moments passed. Maybe minutes. Then the silence was broken by the sound of the wall phone beginning to ring, just as there was a thump from the bedroom.

They looked at each other.

“I’ll check on Owain,” Niles said, just as Leo told him, “I’ll answer the phone.”

They stood up. Niles opened the bedroom door while Leo answered the phone. He could see the glittering, bloody mess that was the kitchen floor out of the corner of his eye.

“Hello?” he answered. “Leo speaking. Whoever this is, I’m afraid Owain—"

 _“Leo!”_ Camilla said. Leo blinked in surprise. Of all people, he hadn’t expected to hear his sister’s voice on the other end of Owain’s phone at six in the morning. Or whatever time it was. Too early. _“Thank the gods, I’ve finally found you.”_

“Camilla?” Leo frowned, brow furrowing. He didn’t ask how she knew to call Owain’s home to reach him. She must have called his and Niles’s place, received no answer, and then gone from there. “What’s wrong?”

_“Leo… Something terrible has happened.”_

He glanced over to the bedroom and could barely make out the lump under the blankets through the partially opened door, Niles’s profile dipping in and out of view as he checked Owain’s injuries. “Yes, I’m aware. Owain was attacked last night. Niles has only just finished patching him up, so we haven’t called Severa yet. Is she there? We’re hoping he’ll pull through just fine, but…”

 _“No,”_ Camilla said shakily. _“No, Leo. It’s Xander.”_

No. No, no, no, no.

Severa had known exactly what she’d find when she woke up on the grass, head pounding, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and saw the front door to Inigo’s place wide open in the fresh morning air. She’d scrambled up as quick as she could on dizzy, stumbling feet, but it had already been too late.

She’d failed.

“Stop squirming,” Jakob chided when she hissed from the sting of his bloody cotton ball. “I’m almost done. You’re lucky you don’t have a concussion.”

Lucky. She’d been lucky, while Xander and Inigo had been dead.

She was dimly aware of Jakob frowning in her periphery. His dabbing of the wound on the back of her head was a little gentler after that. So even he had a heart after all.

It didn’t really matter though. Nothing did.

Half the town was dead, and Severa had nothing to show for it. Nothing except dead friends. And now dead family.

All of it, her fault. Because she hadn’t been smarter. Faster. More aware.

Camilla had been the first one she’d called, of course. She had almost no memory of what they’d said to each other. Jakob had been second.

She didn’t even know why she’d called him. Instinct, she supposed.

Her thoughts swirled but almost none were coherent. They all kept coming back to the image of Xander, slumped face down at the kitchen table, blood blooming around the knife handle sticking out of his back. He’d never even seen it coming.

Inigo had seen it. Or had found it.

She could see him even more clearly. Collapsed in the kitchen doorway. Pale. Lifeless. Not a speck of blood on him.

Severa had thought he’d fainted at first. She’d shaken and yelled at him to wake up until she’d caught sight of his blue lips, his ragdoll limbs. Then she’d checked his pulse and had been left wanting.

Shit.

“What the hell did he die from?” Severa muttered, not expecting a real answer. “Heartbreak?”

Jakob glanced down at her, expression unreadable.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Inigo is… _was_ the sensitive sort. Maybe his heart could only take so much.”

That was so… ugh. She couldn’t dignify that with an answer.

Thankfully, Jakob didn’t demand one. He quietly finished tending to her head just as a car whipped around the corner of the street and screeched to a halt outside the house.

Severa knew that car.

She and Camilla only lived five minutes down the road. She wasn’t surprised Camilla had chosen to drive anyway.

She had no idea what to say to her wife. _I’m sorry_ didn’t seem like nearly enough.

Jakob stepped back and went off to—somewhere. It didn’t matter. Severa’s vision had tunneled.

Disheveled, Camilla threw herself out of the car without bothering to cut the motor. Her face was flush, her cheeks tear-streaked. Her eyes immediately locked on to Severa, who froze.

Camilla didn’t hesitate. She ran across the street and immediately threw her arms around Severa, drawing her close.

“C-Camilla,” Severa gasped. She raised her arms but couldn’t bring herself to hold Camilla back. She didn’t deserve it. “I’m…”

“Shh.” Camilla brushed her hair back and pulled Severa close, burying her nose in Severa’s hair. Her voice was thick and wet. “I _know_.”

Severa had to force herself to speak. “No. Camilla, I… It’s all my—”

 _“No,”_ Camilla hissed into her ear. “It’s the fault of whatever bastard attacked you and Xander. It is _not_ your fault.” She let out a wet, shaky breath. “Severa, I’m so happy that you’re…”

She didn’t finish. Severa felt Camilla’s arms around her tighten. Her ribs creaked in protest as her heart cracked in two.

“I’m so… so happy that you…”

Severa fisted Camilla’s shirt and held on tight.

Finally, she broke.

Leo felt…

Empty.

Hollow.

It was early afternoon now. He knew that from the angle at which the sun streamed in through the window. Hours had passed between that morning—since that phone call with Camilla—but they had passed in a blink. He could only vaguely remember what had been said after…

_“No. No, Leo. It’s Xander.”_

Their brother, Xander.

Gone forever.

Leo pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. Then he pressed harder. He wasn’t going to cry, but there was an ache behind his eyes that had settled there early that morning and never let up.

An arm settled around his shoulders. Niles’s, of course. The weight of it was almost too much to bear.

He didn’t say anything, and for that, Leo was grateful.

They hadn’t left Owain’s house. Couldn’t have. Not with Owain bedridden and not quite unconscious. He was too vulnerable a target to leave alone, especially since Inigo had apparently been present when Xander had been attacked and now he, too, was gone.

Leo’s initial reaction had been to run to Xander’s house, to verify the events for himself. Then he’d realized how pointless that would have been.

His next instinct had been to run to Camilla, Corrin, and Elise. To simply be with them, he supposed, since he wasn’t sure what else they could do. Someone else was taking care of the bodies, he’d been told, although he didn’t remember whose responsibility it was at the moment. When the call had come, Niles had instantly offered to stay behind while Leo ran to his family.

Leo had wavered.

He’d said no.

Owain couldn’t be moved, and Leo didn’t want to leave Niles behind. The attacks had all happened during the night so far, but at this point, he couldn’t take any chances. He couldn’t leave Niles or Owain.

He wasn’t being entirely selfless in his answer either. As much as he’d initially wanted to run to his siblings’ sides, as time had passed, Leo became less sure he could take any of it—Camilla’s tears, Corrin’s devastation, Elise’s questions.

Their despair. Their helplessness.

Leo shook, though he could hardly feel it.

No. He couldn’t take it. Not now.

Niles held him tight.

“Maybe we should just go,” Severa said that evening, after hours of staring at their bedroom walls had finally cleared her head a little. “After the funeral, I mean. We should leave for a while.”

“You don’t think we’ll find them,” Camilla said after a beat. “ _Them_ ” meaning “the killer.” It wasn’t a question.

Camilla’s eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks pallid. As they had been for hours.

Severa looked at her hands.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. The defeat was audible in her own voice. “Maybe at some point. But right now…” She couldn’t finish but was sure Camilla knew what she meant anyway. “It’s not safe.”

Camilla went quiet for so long that Severa forced herself to look up. She watched Camilla stare at her own clenched fists in silence.

Eventually, Camilla’s shoulder’s fell.

“You’re right. It’s not safe.” She let out a soft sigh. “We should leave tonight. No point in waiting.”

Severa’s head jerked in surprise. “But the funeral—”

“We can come back for the funeral,” Camilla said. “Make a day trip out of it. But Xander wouldn’t have wanted us to stay here a moment longer. Not if it’s unsafe.”

Severa didn’t know what to say to that. This was the longest Camilla had gone after mentioning Xander’s name without crying. She nodded in silent agreement.

“Besides,” Camilla said, voice growing thick, “there’s the coroner’s report to worry about first. The funeral won’t be for a while. Xander and Inigo’s bodies need to be taken to… to…”

“I know,” Severa said, feeling empty. She laid her hand on top of Camilla’s on the mattress. “Alright. We can leave tonight. Pack our bags in the next hour or two and come back for anything we might need later.”

Camilla sniffed wetly and nodded, but when she spoke, her voice was even. “I’ll tell Elise and Corrin.”

She stood up and briskly made her way out of the room. Severa watched her go.

Corrin had been hiding out in Elise’s room all day. They hadn’t left after their visit the night before, and Severa couldn’t imagine Corrin returning to their empty house to be alone with just Jakob after all this. After Camilla had broken the news that morning, Corrin had run to Elise’s room and never come out.

Elise had stayed with them for longer, heaving great big sobs that left puddles on Camilla’s shirt, before retreating back to her room as well. The house had been silent ever since.

Severa couldn’t imagine what she was going through. What any of them were going through. Inigo wasn’t even her real brother, and the sudden loss of him felt like someone had stuck a hot poker in her abdomen and left it there.

After a few moments, she could hear snippets of conversation that floated down the hallway.

 _“…leaving tonight…”_ Camilla said.

Severa could just barely make out the replies.

Elise’s voice cracked. _“But… this… our home…”_

 _“…Are you really sure?”_ That one was Corrin.

_“Yes.”_

A beat passed, and then some muffled comments that Severa couldn’t fully make out.

_“I know… pack your…”_

Suddenly feeling like she shouldn’t have been hearing this, Severa tiptoed her way out of the bedroom. She saw the door to Elise’s room was cracked open and turned away, shame faced.

She hadn’t told Elise or Corrin that she’d been watching Xander and Inigo’s house that night. That if only she had been smarter, more vigilant, maybe their brother would be alive. Camilla hadn’t mentioned it since they’d returned home either. Elise and Corrin didn’t know, but Severa still couldn’t look them in the eye.

Distractions. She needed to distract herself, as well as give Camilla and her siblings privacy.

A string hanging from the ceiling caught her eye. She looked up and saw the pull-down attic entrance hanging above her head.

The suitcases were up there. She could pull them down and get a head start on packing. Perfect.

Severa went off to grab a chair from the kitchen.

**The Fourth Night**

Finally, after what felt like years of dead silence, Leo unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Niles,” he croaked. “What… What was that suspicion you had?”

Niles subtly stiffened, but Leo was too focused on him not to notice.

“Leo, now isn’t—”

“Please,” he said.

Niles paused. “You won’t like it.”

Next to them on the bed, Owain slept on, oblivious.

“Please,” Leo repeated.

Severa watched the orange rays of the setting sun bounce off the inside of the sink through the kitchen window. She’d stood there for several minutes already, debating the merits of cooking a quick dinner versus shoving snacks in a bag versus picking something up on the road. Not that she was hungry. But maybe someone else might be.

It would help if she knew where they were going. If they were driving one town over or to the nearest big city. If they would just drive until it finally felt like _enough._

Was she supposed to be calling someone to tell them their plans? Leo and Niles? Could they put Owain in the backseat of their car and drive behind Camilla’s until they reached the hospital two hours away? Would the suggestion of running away sound better coming from Camilla?

She heard the sound of something heavy being shifted and turned around. “Camilla?”

The kitchen was empty. Nothing looked different when she peered through the archway into the dining room either.

She turned back around. Orange sunlight glinted off the countertop.

She still fully intended to grab the suitcases from the attic and start packing. She was just—giving the women and Corrin privacy for the moment. As much as she could give them in a house this size, anyway.

A floorboard creaked.

She spun.

Nothing.

Severa hugged herself, frowning. Was she hearing things? Or just jumping at every little sound because she no longer felt safe in her own home?

After what had happened to Inigo and the others…

Maybe it was time to check on Camilla and the others.

She tiptoed towards the edge of the kitchen, glancing furtively around herself as she went. Suddenly, every curtain, table, and corner seemed like a great hiding spot for a killer to lay in wait. Which was ridiculous, since she hadn’t even heard the front door open or anything.

 _Keep it together_ , she mentally hissed at herself. She couldn’t be this paranoid in front of Camilla.

“Camilla?” she said, stepping through the kitchen archway.

The soft rustle of fabric was the only warning she got before she heard a sickening noise, and an indescribable pain radiated from her shoulder.

Severa screamed and instinctively stumbled into the wall. She caught herself with one hand, her other shoulder pulsing with too much pain to move. Her back and arm felt suddenly, inexplicably, wet.

“Oh, sorry,” somebody said. “I missed.”

She turned, blinking the blurriness out of her vision. She could hardly believe what she was seeing.

Corrin, gripping the handle of the ornate axe that had hung on the wall for as long as Severa could remember.

Gripping the now _bloody_ axe.

_I missed._

Corrin had been aiming for her head.

Severa pressed her back against the wall, grimacing. Without looking, she tried to touch her shoulder with her good hand to suss out the damage there, but a sharp wave of nauseating pain caused her to recoil. She glanced at her bloody palm in shock.

“Corrin?” she croaked. “Wha… What are you…”

“Just hold still,” Corrin said calmly, a drop of Severa’s blood dotting their cheek. “I’ll make this quick.”

They reared back with the axe for a second time. Severa was already twisting away, running down the hall as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Camilla!” she shouted. “Camilla! Elise!”

She burst into Elise’s bedroom, intending to warn her and Camilla, and then froze. She dropped to her knees.

Camilla, her wife, lay crumpled on the carpet of Elise’s bedroom, her long, lilac hair splayed out around her like a halo. There were bright red marks in the shape of handprints on her neck. She wasn’t moving.

Severa stared.

She was quickly knocked out of her stupor by the pain of something sharp slamming into her side, just below her ribs. It hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before. She cried out, collapsing on the ground next to Camilla.

“Oh, jeez,” Corrin panted. Seeing Severa curled up on the floor, they leaned the axe against the wall. “This thing is heavy. Sorry. I really did aim for the head that time.”

 _What the fuck_ , Severa opened her mouth to say. She could only gasp.

Any hopes of help arriving or at least some of her trust going unbetrayed were dashed when Elise popped out from behind the bed. “Oh, you got her! Good job, Corrin!”

“Thanks,” Corrin said.

Severa opened and closed her mouth. Blood gushed out of the wound in her side, and her hands shook from fear and pain when she tried to press down on it to staunch the flow.

“E-Elise.” Her tongue stumbled over the words. “You… Why would you…” She blinked tears out of her eyes. “You _love_ your family.”

Her thoughts swam in a jumble, one unfinished thought trailing into another. but Elise seemed to catch on to what she meant anyway. The young teen sat on her bed with a plop and looked down at Severa and Camilla sadly.

“I know,” she said. “I do love you a lot. That’s why I saved you guys for last.”

Severa sucked in rapid, panicked breaths, her heart sinking.

“Effie… and Arthur?” She could barely finish the question.

Elise and Corrin shared a look.

“Effie had to go first because she was Elise’s best friend,” Corrin began to explain. Severa trembled.

Elise nodded. “Yeah! Nobody would ever suspect me of killing my best friend! So we started with her. We killed her together, for practice.”

“We chose Arthur for the same reasons,” Corrin continued. “And then Peri, because she was going to go on a killing spree of her own, and we didn’t want that.”

Elise was counting on her fingers. “And then Corrin sat outside the window last night for a long time, listening to everybody talk, and they heard that Owain was getting suspicious of the way I was acting! So I tried to kill him next.” She pouted. “It didn’t work, though. Niles showed up, and I got scared.”

“So we chose the next best target and went for Xander. We knew Camilla would get really protective once he was gone, so we’d be even safer from suspicion.”

She couldn’t believe it. Everything they were saying made sense, timeline-wise, but the people involved, their reasoning—it was just too implausible. She didn’t understand.

Severa gasped, “I-Inigo…”

Elise scrunched up her nose. “Yeah, that was really weird! Corrin and I didn’t even do anything to him. He just took one look at Xander and dropped dead.”

“Less work for us, though,” Corrin said, shrugging. “We probably would have tried Niles and Leo next if Camilla hadn’t said she was going to take us away tonight. We can’t let that happen, can we?”

 _Why not?_ Severa tried to say. But what came out of her mouth was—

“H-How…”

Elise giggled and pointed to the window. “It’s not that hard, silly. I sneak out all the time, and Camilla never notices. And you haven’t been home since this all started, which made it even easier!”

“Jakob’s a pretty heavy sleeper,” Corrin confessed. “Especially since I’ve been spiking his tea at night.”

Severa sucked in a shuddery breath.

“Oh, hey, are you going into shock?” Elise asked curiously.

Corrin pulled a sympathetic face. “Sorry. Just because we want you gone doesn’t mean you should suffer. Here, I’ll help you out.”

Severa weakly shook her head. Her vision was tinged with darkness at its edges; she couldn’t even feel the wounds in her side or shoulder anymore.

Corrin hefted the axe up with a grunt as Elise swung her legs from the bed, watching calmly. It even sounded like she was humming a song under her breathe.

Severa choked on her next breath. She could just barely see Camilla's unmoving form out of the corner of her eye.

“Pl... ease…”

“Don’t worry,” Corrin said. “You did your best. You’ll get to see everyone else really soon.”

And then they brought down the axe.

_“And that makes Leo and Niles the only remaining Innocents still playing,” Jakob announced. “The Mafia wins.”_

_Elise cheered while Corrin stuck out their hand, grinning. They high-fived._

_“Good work, you two,” Xander congratulated them seriously._

_Inigo smiled and leaned into Xander’s side._

_“Ah, to die of a broken heart.” He placed a hand on his chest. “What a way to go.”_

_“I was going to tell you I suspected Elise and Corrin,” Niles said to Leo, further down the table, “but I didn’t think you could take it.”_

_“It’s just a game,” Leo said, somewhat sourly. “The cards are random. I would have accepted the possibility of Corrin and Elise being the traitors in a_ game _.”_

_Niles hummed. “Even so.”_

_“I wouldn’t have accepted it,” Camilla said, as if to comfort her brother._

_Jakob shook his head at her. “And that’s why you all failed miserably.”_

_“No fair,” Severa grumbled. She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. “If Owain hadn’t left, we could have won.”_

_As if on cue, the door swung open and Owain bounded into the room, a plastic bag full of chips and soda swinging from his wrists. “The great Owain has returned! What did I miss?”_

_“We lost,” Inigo told him._

_Owain’s jaw dropped like he had been struck. “What? How?”_

_Severa threw her hands up. “Because you decided to go to the store mid-game!”_

_“I told you who I suspected before I left!” Owain countered. “Why didn’t you vote Elise off? She tried to kill me!”_

_“We didn’t have majority vote!”_

_“Now, now,” Camilla smoothly interrupted. “Corrin and Elise won fair and square. They did a good job.”_

_Elise beamed. “Thanks! That was really fun!”_

_“I’ll admit, I had my doubts at the start,” Corrin said. “I’m not a very good liar. But Elise and I make a pretty good team, don’t we?”_

_“You did a wonderful job, Corrin,” Jakob said, looking only at them. “I never had any doubt you’d succeed.”_

_Severa pretended to barf. Jakob glared._

_“As much as I’d love to play another game with you all, I’m afraid it’s getting pretty late.” Camilla gave the clock a significant look. “A lady needs her beauty sleep, after all.”_

_Inigo winked at her. “Don’t worry about sleep, Camilla. Your good looks are all natural. They run in the family, even.”_

_Then he yelped as, in tandem, Xander and Severa swatted him in the back of the head. Camilla smiled slyly._

_Leo, who had been drumming his fingers on the table, slouched in his chair, stood up with a sigh. “It is getting late. I think I’ll turn in too.”_

_“But I just got back!” Owain whined._

_“Then you can come with us,” Niles said smoothly, slipping his hand into Leo’s, “and we can keep this party going for a while longer. What do you say?”_

_Owain did not seem to catch on to the implications there at all. “Wonderful! Then it is a good thing I have restocked my supply of ambrosia after all!”_

_He held up a bag, and the table all caught a glimpse of the neon packaging of sour gummy worms and orange soda inside the bag. Niles shook his head._

_Leo failed to hide a grimace, but he let Owain bound back out the door before following with Niles anyway._

_Camilla kissed Elise and Corrin’s heads. “I had a wonderful time tonight. Thank you for suggesting we play together.”_

_“Thanks for playing with us,” Corrin said._

_Then they said, “Oh, Jakob, let me help you with that,” and began to clean the table of empty cups and cards._

_Severa, who had been more than a little huffy since the loss, melted as Camilla placed an arm around her shoulders and led her towards the door. The frown didn’t totally fall of her face, but she did look much more relaxed._

_“Elise, are you coming?” Camilla asked._

_“I wanted to spend the night with Inigo and Xander though,” Elise reminded her with a pout._

_Inigo laughed. “Well, that’s fine by me. Xander?”_

_“It’s more than alright,” Xander said._

_Elise cheered. Camilla smiled as she walked out the door with Severa in tow._

_“Alright.” Inigo clapped his hands together. “Let’s help Jakob and Corrin clean up, and then we’ll be on our way.”_

_“Oh, no.” Corrin waved them away; Jakob, who had already retreated deeper into the house to load the dishwasher, said nothing. “We’re fine here, and it’s awfully late. Go ahead home.”_

_Xander frowned. “If you’re sure.”_

_Inigo playfully shoved his shoulder. “You heard them. It’s time for bed, mister. March!”_

_He received a bemused look from Xander but no arguments. Corrin saw them all to the door._

_“Maybe Effie and Arthur and everyone else can stay for longer next time too,” Elise said, slipping her shoes back on. “They all left so early!”_

_“If we plan in advance, they might,” Inigo said congenially. “This was probably too spur-of-the-moment for everyone to stay for the whole thing, given the hour.”_

_“Bu still!”_

_“We’ll make a day of it next time,” Corrin promised her. Xander placed a comforting hand on Elise’s shoulder, and she smiled up at him hopefully._

_And with that, they all went their separate ways for the night._

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe this was originally going to be a somewhat lighthearted murder mystery? And then that last scene got extra bloody and bumped the rating up to Explicit. Whoops!
> 
> If it's not clear at the end, everyone is playing a game of [Mafia,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_\(party_game\)) a social deduction party game. The events written above are a dramatized version of the game. Some players (Effie, Arthur, Peri, anyone else mentioned who is not present in the ending) were briefly present but left before the game was over. They were all Innocent players and/or already dead, so them leaving didn't affect the game much, however. (Except for Owain, who, even after Niles saved him from death, chose to leave for snacks because he got bored. RIP.)
> 
> The rules in Mafia can vary a lot game to game, depending on what version the players prefer, so here is a quick list of the roles I was using as a basis for this fic:
> 
>  **Roles:**  
>  _Corrin & Elise _— Mafia (each can choose one person a night to kill)  
>  _Camilla, Owain, Leo, Effie, Arthur, Peri, Beruka, etc._ — Innocents (trying to find the Mafia players)  
>  _Xander & Inigo_ — Lovers (if one dies, the other automatically dies of heartbreak)  
>  _Severa_ — Detective (can stake out one person every night to see if they are part of the Mafia)  
>  _Niles_ — Doctor (can protect one person of their choosing from the Mafia each night)  
>  _Jakob_ — Narrator (narrates the events of the game and knows all player roles)
> 
> They never managed to get a majority vote on who the Mafia might be, so nobody was ever eliminated during discussions. Hence why the cast remains the same until Elise and Corrin choose someone to kill. 
> 
> Additionally, only Effie died on the First Night because Corrin and Elise both chose Effie. They chose separate people to kill every night the rest of the game.
> 
> I was originally going to write a totally different and much shorter fic for Halloween this year, but it was shaping up to be much more introspective than this and with much less dialogue. I didn't think you guys would like that, so I switched things up and tried this out instead. 
> 
> I am a sucker who can't stand permanent character death and endings that aren't happy, so it is the All Just A Dream trope for the ending here. Also, despite my trying to limit whose POV I jumped to, I'm pretty sure the the murderers' identities are pretty obvious by the time you're halfway through the fic. But hey, you had fun, right? At least I did!
> 
> Feel free to let me know if there are any mistakes I missed in editing! Spellcheck is pretty good, but I sped through the last quarter of this fic because I wanted to get it done sooner.
> 
> Also, feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Happy Halloween, everyone! This year has been a rough one, but I hope you have a spooktacular October!


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